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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Best article about XZ backdoor? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey, I've been hearing a LOT about the xz backdoor. Crazy story, but rather than reading 10 different articles about it from 3 days ago when the story was quite new, does anybody know a high quality write-up that has all the juicy details and facts? I really like in-depth guides that cover every aspect of the story.

Thanks in advance guys!

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're correct. Right now many experts are scrambling all those small pieces together as to how this could happen in the first place, as a lot of it was public too: the social pressure on maintainers, random software changes that now seem suspicious, and the absence of a real identity of the perpetrators. Every expert who's onto this seems to be a real person, with a real identity and a real face to the name.

Prior to the first commits, there must have been months if not years of planning too.

But just the fact that some of the code those perpetrators wrote took +0.5 seconds more for something that would normally only take 0.2-0.3 seconds is what gave them away.

0.5 seconds of CPU time vs. years of planning.

It's an intriguing story.

They tried so hard, they got so far, but in the end, it didn't even matter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I wonder exactly why ssh was taking so long more. Perhaps the bits that scan ssh logs with a regex to extract IP address and username?

Whatever it is, that particular bit should be easy to deactivate since somehow a full fledged binary file with executable code was being bundled. I can imagine it only being active under a toggle that would make it harder to detect, such as a specific time of day.